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sneak-thief?” said Johnson. “You saw the bugged table. Your friend Holmes had gone, and he wasn’t the juvenile lead in ‘Mrs. Dale’s Diary.’ So you say. How do you know he hasn’t been kidnapped?”
    “Because I’ve checked, and he hasn’t,” I snapped back, with a smile. If there was a lip reader among the admirals, we were sunk.
    The beetle brows rose over the enormous bifocals. “So it did occur to you,” said Johnson. “Then what did your friend say about the late Mr. Chigwell?”
    I got up. “I’ll tell you when he comes to the phone.”
    He stood too. “So you haven’t spoken to him?”
    I could feel my teeth clench. Then, my back to the room, I spoke quickly and softly. “Listen. You’re partly right. Kenneth is a scientist, and his work is important. That’s why the table was bugged. But it’s nothing to do with the murder. It’s because of me. They don’t like international attachments. He’s not supposed to be seeing me, even.”
    “They must be frightfully pleased then, that you’re on board
Dolly
with me… Shall we go out?” enquired Johnson.
    I led the way, rather thoughtfully. For the fact was, after all that publicity, it must be all too clear to Kenneth’s bosses as well as to Kenneth that I was making for Rum
… if
they knew that I was the person he was expecting in Rose Street that night. And if they knew that, and the late Mr. Chigwell came to light any time in the next three or four days, they had the perfect excuse for detaining me. On the other hand…
    “On the other hand,” said Johnson, exactly as if I had spoken aloud. “Our first theory may be right. Chigwell might have been killed by someone who thought he was Dr. Holmes. And having found out his mistake, our little friend with the warts may be at the other end of the country just now, trailing the good Kenneth Holmes.” The bifocals flashed at me. “But you say you can warn him. So that must be all right.”
    All right, hell. If somebody was trailing Kenneth Holmes with intent to murder, that somebody was here, on the west coast of Scotland, going the way I was going, to Rum.
     
    I said goodnight to Johnson soon after, at the door of my room where he found considerable interest, it seemed, in gazing over my shoulder at my night attire, laid out on the bed, with my big, gold-fitted toilet case beside it. The trunk and the four travelling cases were standing still locked.
    “Uh, tell me,” said Johnson. “Have you ever gone sailing before? On anything less than three thousand tons, for example?”
    “
Is
there anything less than three thousand tons?” I replied. I was irritated. I added, remembering the portrait, “I’m sorry; but are you trying to say that the
Dolly
is too small for my luggage?”
    “No, no. She isn’t too small.” He thought. “But she’ll sink like a lift.”
    Ten minutes later, all my cases were open and had been cannibalised into a small heap of unappetising woollies, some mine and some Johnson’s. I was to put these in the smallest of my cases and leave it outside my door at eight o’clock sharp. Breakfast would be at 8:15, after which Rupert would row me to
Dolly
. At 9:30 we should set sail down the Clyde estuary for Gourock, and after an early lunch, the race would begin.
    I listened; I answered; I bade him goodnight; I saw him into the corridor; I returned and took, in due course, to my bed, having made my sole (as yet) gesture of explicit contempt.
    I did not give myself the trouble of locking the door.
     
    Next morning the sun was shining, but I had seen the sun shining in Scotland before. I dressed to my satisfaction, and had three calls to my bedroom before I was quite ready, at eight forty-five, to saunter downstairs.
    The hall of the Yacht Club was full of pixie caps, turtle necks, stained denims and an inorganic culture of toggles. I was wearing my thin kid trouser suit in almond pink, with matching boots and knitted silk jersey. My hair was in a French pleat,